With the end of nomadic life came a dramatic shift in ideology. Although the Primordial Goddess was the original model, as later goddess traditions developed, she was given different roles according to the beliefs and spiritual needs of the people who worshipped her.
The tradition of the Mother Earth Goddess can be seen reflected in many different conceptions of the divine feminine including the Greek mother goddess, Gaea , the original inspiration for the Primordial Goddess place setting. Regardless of the many forms she takes that are celebrated globally, all goddess traditions owe something to the early worship of and appreciation for the Primordial Goddess.
The Primordial Goddess place setting references early goddess traditions, in which women were creators, associated with the primordial earth. The plate evokes both flesh and rock, symbolizing the ties between the female body and Mother Earth. It also echoes early art in which the coil is a recurrent motif, thought to be a symbol of the goddess and sacred femininity. The calfskins represent the early clothing made by women; they are adorned with cowry shells, an ancient symbol of female fertility.
Ann, Martha, and Dorothy Myers Imel. Goddesses in World Mythology. Eisler, Riane. New York: HarperCollins, Gadon, Elinor W. Gimbutas, Marija. Berkeley: University of California Press, Husain, Shahrukh.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, Leeming, David Adams. Goddess: Myths of the Female Divine. Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Sjoo, Monica. Sprout, Barbara, ed. Judy Chicago American, b. The Dinner Party Primordial Goddess place setting , — Mixed media: ceramic, porcelain, textile. Steve Kelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Notions of gods arise in all human societies, from all powerful and all-knowing deities to simple forest spirits. A recent method of examining religious thought and behaviour links their ubiquity and the similarity of our beliefs to the ways in which human mental processes were adapted for survival in prehistoric times.
It rests on a couple of observations about human psychology. First, when an event happens, we tend to assume that a living thing caused it. In other words, we assume agency behind that event. A rustling of a bush or the snapping of a twig could be due to wind. The survivors who had this tendency to more readily ascribe agency to an event passed their genes down the generations, increasingly hard-wiring this way of making snap decisions into the brain.
This is not something that people need to learn. It occurs quickly and automatically. The second trait is about how we view others. While living together in a tribe would have had many advantages for survival in prehistoric times, getting along with everyone would not always have been easy.
Not having this ability has been proposed to underlie developmental disorders such as autism. You may be wondering what these two hard-wired processes have to do with belief in gods. Imagine a pebble falling in the back of a cave. Our agency device tells us that someone caused that to happen. With nothing in evidence, could it be an invisible creature or a spirit?
If so, why would it be sneaking around? To find out secrets about us or to discover if we are good or bad people?
Another example might be a volcanic eruption. And why would they want to cause such destruction? These two very simplistic examples should help illustrate how these hard-wired mechanisms could lead to the beginnings of a belief in gods, as well as ghosts and other supernatural creatures. Our ancestors would have drawn conclusions about supernatural occurrences by fitting together these instincts towards agency and the theory of mind.
0コメント